Dub and Sub Dilemma
I'm American, born and raised in Connecticut on the English language. I've always had a fascination with Japan; movies, animation and culture. I finally fulfilled my dream and spent four years living and working in Japan as an English teacher. I don't really speak, read or write Japanese, but I've learned enough about the language and culture to understand about 25% of what is going on. I can watch a Japanese film in the original language and I understand quite a bit of it.
One thing you learn living in Japan, the language and culture are combined. Cultural standards are intermixed with the language to the point where they cannot be separated. I could write a book to try and explain this stuff, so you're not going to get a comprehensive explanation in this IMDB post. I will post a few observations/insights.
I will say that much of the dubs and subs of Japanese films have been altered or 'watered-down' to make it more understandable for English-speaking audiences. Things that exist in Japan simply do not 'translate' into English because the cultural implications are not there. You cannot explain away 4000 years of Japanese culture in one simple English sentence in a movie or anime.
In this film, for example, there are many times when Mei calls out (in the original Japanese sound-track) 'ane-san' and the subtitle or the dub says 'Satsuski' (Mei's sister's name). Ane-san actually means 'older sister', but nobody in the English speaking world talks like that, so the dub or sub is altered to make more sense to the unenlightened westerners. It is common to speak to each other in terms of 'position' in the Japanese family or community (older sister, younger brother, maiden aunt or married uncle). This is normal for Japanese culture but it has no correlation with English-speaking folks, so edits have to be made to make it understandable in English, even if it's totally wrong.
Another example is the two girls speaking to 'granny'. The woman is not actually related to them, so they call her 'obasan' in Japanese (once again, from the original Japanese language sound track). Obasan actually means 'older woman' or in some cases of affection, 'auntie.' The dubs and the subs leave out the cultural differences in the language.
Many times, the word 'hai' is translated as 'ok', or 'coming'. Hai means 'yes ' in Japanese. No other translation is needed.
Oh! The whole bathing scene. Chances are, the Father was wearing a codpiece or towel around his parts. This is understood in Japan, but, unfortunately in America and other western English-speaking nations, everybody assumes he was naked and naked = sex. Sorry, but just not the case in Japan. Just think about this....in America, we can watch any TV show on CBS, NBC, ABC or Fox and see people brutally shot, beaten, killed or otherwise physically abused during the course of an evening, and that is *OK*. We cannot, however, ever see a naked breast of a woman because that automatically means *sex* to everyone. Wow! Does anyone see a 'national' problem here? Hate, death and destruction is good but anything that has us actually see something naked is automatically related to sex and is bad?
Japanese grammar is also inside-out compared to English grammar. For a short example: take the simple sentence..."what is this?". In Japanese, this becomes 'kore wa nan desu ka?' Kore is 'this'. wa is an untranslatable particle called a joshi. Nan is 'what' and desu is the 'to be' verb 'is'. Ka is another untranslatable particle that makes the sentence interrogative...turns it into a question. So the direct translation of 'what is this' becomes 'this what is?' Welcome to Japanese grammar.
And you thought it was easy to translate Japanese into English!
Hayao Miyazaki may have approved the dubs and subs for his films, but I know he was making sure the text was understandable to the western world, and not necessarily holding the true meaning in the Japanese culture.
What my message is: either dub or sub, you are missing out on the true meaning of things in a Japanese film if you don't have a good understanding of Japanese language and culture. They are bound together. If you can, I would recommend you go and live in Japan to learn and understand it all. I'm planning on going back for my 5th year to learn more. I love it and I'm working on it. Arigato.